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‘Tarting yourself up for me?’
‘Yes,’ she said sheepishly.
He laughed. ‘I would never think that of you. Silly Rachel.’
Rachel tried not to be offended. But she was, all the same. Yes, silly, silly Rachel.
‘Which brings me right back to my original suggestion,’ he went on. ‘Now, tomorrow I want you to go down to that beauty salon and get the works. Facial, massage, pedicure, manicure, waxing, hair, make-up. The lot. It says here they do all that.’
‘That seems excessive.’ Even for me, she thought ruefully.
‘No, it’s not. It’s necessary.’
‘Oh, thank you very much,’ came the waspish comment.
‘Now, now, this is no time for over-sensitivity, Rachel. The truth is you’ve let yourself get into bad habits with this plain-Jane nonsense. I can understand that you might not have bothered with your appearance much when you were at home all the time, but I’ll bet there was a time when you went to a lot of trouble with your hair and make-up and clothes.’
‘We-ll…’
‘Well?’ he probed forcefully.
‘I always suspected I didn’t become a finalist in the Secretary of the Year competition on my office skills alone,’ she said drily.
‘I don’t doubt it. I’ll bet you were a looker back then.’
‘I was…attractive.’
‘And you never wore black.’
‘Not often.’
‘How did you wear your hair?’
‘Down,’ she admitted. ‘With auburn highlights.’
‘No wonder people from your past didn’t recognise you today. But, come tomorrow night, Eric the Mongrel will recognise you all right.’
‘Eric the Mongrel?’ she repeated on a gasp.
‘Yeah. That’s what I’ve nicknamed him. Do you like it?’
‘Oh, dear. I love it.’
‘So you’ll do it? Come to the dinner with me?’
Rachel swallowed. It would take every bit of courage she owned to face Eric and that woman once more, even if she was dolled up to the nines. But, by God, she would!
‘Yes,’ she said, and Justin beamed.
‘Fantastic. Here. A toast is in order.’
He held his glass out towards her and she clicked it with hers.
‘To the comeuppance of Eric the Mongrel,’ Justin pronounced.
Rachel’s stomach flipped over. ‘Comeuppance?’
‘Oh, yes. Your ex deserves a few serves. And I’m just the man to deliver them!’
Justin paced up and down the living room, impatient for Rachel to make her appearance. She’d stayed hidden ever since her return from the beauty salon around five, letting herself in whilst he’d been in the bathroom, shaving. Now it was getting on for seven and he was dressed in his tux and ready to go down for the cocktail party that preceded the dinner at eight, an arrangement Rachel was well acquainted with. They’d discussed it last night.
So when seven came and went without her showing, Justin strode down the hallway and knocked firmly on her door.
‘Enough titivating in there, Rachel. It’s seven o’clock. Time you faced the music.’
‘Coming,’ she called back. But nervously, he thought.
The door opened and Justin’s blue eyes rounded.
‘Wow, Rachel. You don’t just look great. You look fabulous!’
Even that was an understatement. Where had his plain-Jane PA disappeared to? In her place stood a striking creature. No, a stunning creature. No, a striking, stunning, sexy creature.
Justin found himself standing there, just staring at her, trying to work out what she’d done to cause such a dramatic transformation.
It couldn’t just be her hair, though it was very different. And very red, he noted wryly. Cut in layers, it fell from an off-centre parting to her shoulders, framing her face and her eyes, her always lovely eyes, which now looked not just lovelier but larger. Was it the smoky eye make-up which had achieved this effect, or some other subtle change? Whatever, when he looked into her face he couldn’t stop looking at her eyes.
They looked back at him, heartbreakingly hesitant. She still didn’t know how beautiful she was. How amazingly, incredibly beautiful.
‘You honestly think so?’ she asked. ‘You don’t think I look…foolish?’
‘Foolish?’ he echoed in disbelief. ‘In what way could you possibly look foolish?’
‘My hair colour bothers me for starters. It’s too red,’ she said, touching it gingerly with her equally red nails.
‘Honey, you can carry off red now,’ he reassured softly.
‘Oh…’ She blushed prettily. ‘But don’t you think the make-up girl put too much foundation on me? I look like a ghost.’
